Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), formerly (1976–95) Festival of Festivals,
film festival held annually in Toronto in September. It was founded in 1976 as the Festival of Festivals, with the aim of screening movies from other film festivals, and has since become one of the world’s largest annual showcases of film, attended by both industry professionals and the public. It was renamed the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 1995. Since 2010 the festival has been headquartered at TIFF Bell Lightbox, a five-story complex featuring cinemas, galleries, and a variety of film resources.

TIFF runs for 10 days, starting on the Thursday after Canada’s Labour Day. It screens 300 to 400 films from around the globe and has an average attendance of more than 250,000. The festival is particularly known as a platform for promoting and popularizing new films. For example, The Hurt Locker (2008), a low-budget drama about the Iraq War, was able to find a distributor in the United States in part because of the favourable reviews it received at TIFF. It went on to win six Academy Awards in 2010, including best picture. Because TIFF coincides with the start of the fall movie season—when studios often begin their Oscar campaigns—many films that already have distributors debut at the festival as well, with the hope of generating early buzz. Aside from launching future Oscar winners, TIFF also provides an exceptional showcase for Canadian films and filmmakers. Special programs have focused on Canadian short films and on debut features from Canadian filmmakers.

Juried prizes are given in several categories, including best Canadian feature film and best Canadian short film. The popular People’s Choice Award for the best film at TIFF has honoured a number of international crowd-pleasers, including Chariots of Fire (1981), American Beauty (1999), and Slumdog Millionaire (2008). In 2009 TIFF added People’s Choice Awards for best documentary and best film in the festival’s “Midnight Madness” category, composed of genre movies more likely to end up as cult favourites than mainstream hits.